Dan is a designer, educator and entrepreneur. He consults in the area of industrial design, design strategy and user experience, and is an expertwitness in IP litigation. He is the Founder and Principal Designer for Abeo Design LLC, a sustainable furniture manufacturing company. He is the former Director of Design at Altitude, Inc, an award-winning product development firm in Boston, MA, and he worked as a consultant for Arthur D. Little, an international management and product development consulting firm. He has won several IDSA/IDEA awards and holds multiple patents. He has written for Innovation Magazine, The Design Management Institute Journal, and is co-author of the book ‘Process, Materials and Measurements.’ He has lectured in Mexico, The United Kingdom, and around the US. Dan is a co-founder of the District of Design economic development initiative aimed at positioning Northeast Ohio as a recognized center of design and innovation excellence. Dan is pursuing a Ph.D. in Management from the Weatherhead School of Management.

Degree BS, Industrial Design from Central School of Art and Design in London; MBA, Cleveland State University

Carla is the founder and principal partner of Design Interface Inc. an award winning design consultancy specializing in industrial, graphic, package and web design. She teaches Ergonomics and Design and Marketing and Design. In 1998 Carla received the Lily Grant to study women in design and in 2005 she authored a chapter on Ergonomics for the book Process Materials and Measurements, published in collaboration with the ID Department and fellow faculty member Dan Cuffaro.

Haishan Deng comes to CIA from the School of Industrial Design at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (GAFA) in China where he was hired to establish its transportation design program in 2007. By 2009, the program was the first in China to have student work featured on the website Car Design News and his students have been featured there four times since.

The recipient of 12 design awards – including one from the German Association of the Automotive Industry, and a Michelin Challenge Design Award – Deng is also the author of Drive to the Future, a book on transportation design education published in China. His work is featured in four other design books, one each published in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark. He has published research papers at conferences and in professional journals and his work has been featured in 15 different periodicals and websites, including Business Week and Scientific American.

Deng, who refers to himself as a “cross-boundary designer,” has designed more than 50 products – including electronics, household and leisure products, sporting goods, and toys – for worldwide clients including Honeywell, Philips, and DeLonghi. In addition to his teaching and administrative duties at GAFA, since 2002 he has served as chief industrial designer and creative director at Topwave Design Co., and industrial design consultant for Lasko Products, Inc. In 2007 he served as vehicle exterior designer for a German firm (F.X. Meiller Fahrzeug-und Maschinenfabrik-GmbH & Co. KG) where his responsibilities included superstructure design for Mercedes-Benz and Volvo dump trucks.

Deng earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1998. He spent one undergraduate year studying transportation design as an exchange student at University of Art and Design, Linz, Austria. He earned his master’s degree in design arts at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2007.

Dennis is an visiting instructor in Industrial Design at CIA. He has worked with clients such as Coleman, Ames, Weber, Proctor and Gamble, Sherwin Williams, and Moen. He has produced over 100 products and is named on 31 patents. His several awards include having the number 1 National New Product of the Year at Sherwin Williams for the Plastic Paint Container.

Bob is an adjunct faculty member in Industrial Design at The Cleveland Institute of Art. He has worked as a designer at Huck and Studer Design, Babcock and Schmid Associates, Louis and Partners Design, and RGM Design where he is also the Director.